Honda workers who face redundancy following the company’s statement today have a good chance of finding a job through the Talent Retention Solution.
The Talent Retention Solution, a recruitment scheme established to retain skilled technical personnel when large scale redundancies occur, has approached Honda to offer its services to the 800 workers who face redundancy.
The Swindon-based carmaker today announced that 800 jobs would be terminated as a result of very low demand in Europe, especially for the Civic and Jazz models.
Established in 2011 by the Skills and Jobs Retention Group from a proposal made by business secretary Vince Cable, the TRS is a UK-wide strategic platform to facilitate job hunting, often in volume, free of charge. More than 4,000 individuals and 720 companies have registered on the scheme to date.
Rolls-Royce, an early adopter and sponsor of TRS, has found 70 full-time employees though TRS since it started in late 2011.
The Manufacturer is hosting an event in London on 26 February, 2013 looking at the shortage of skills in UK manufacturing and what businesses can do to improve recruitment and retention.
Follow the link for more information: https://www.themanufacturer.com/eventsite/skills/
Sponsored by Airbus, BAE Systems, EDF, Nissan, Rolls-Royce, Shell and Siemens, at a cost of about £25,000 per company, the scheme works by matchmaking demand and supply of technically skilled people including engineers, often in large numbers, when a factory is closed or fast ramp-up is required when big contracts are confirmed.
It is understood that Nissan and BAE Systems used the TRS in tandem when BAE Systems announced it would close its Newcastle factory in 2012, and Nissan needed to recruit 200 engineering technicians.
Richard Smith, director of the TRS, has been in touch with Honda today and confirmed the service is open to Honda’s employees even though the company is not a sponsor. “It is perfectly free, it’s perfectly open and we hope Honda will take as much advantage of it as possible,” he said. “We want them on the system.”
“What Honda has to do is embrace it. We have asked to see them, in an hour we can explain to Honda how it works and their people can get their names up on the platform today.”
Among the 720 member companies, “hundreds” are small and medium sized companies and many of these will be in the Swindon area, Mr Smith added.
The TRS has recently started working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and MAS, the Manufacturing Advisory Service to identify people who are not recruited in a job vacancy to register to the scheme.
“The TRS is trying to grow the UK skills base by attracting skills who would be lost to our industry without intervention when large scale job losses occur,” Smith added.
For more on the Talent Retention Solution visit http://www.talentretention.biz
Will Stirling
